Immigration agents raid Woodfin plant
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WOODFIN – Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement this morning raided a Woodfin manufacturing plant, arresting 57 people on charges related to immigration violations.

The workers used fraudulent documents to get jobs at Mills Manufacturing Corp., a government defense contractor that makes parachutes, special agent Del Richburg said. He called the raid the largest ever in Western North Carolina.

The company is not the target of the investigation and has been cooperative, the agency said. Company officials did not know the workers were illegal, Richburg said.

"The company is not a suspect; they've been cooperative," Richburg said.
The workers apprehended were being bused to the Henderson County Detention Center. Some who have health or family-related issues will be taken back to the plant in Woodfin and released under order to appear later in an immigration court, he said
Others could be moved to Charlotte or Georgia, before their court appearance, he said.

The majority of the workers arrested are from Mexico. Some also are from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Ecuador, said ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado.
Homeland security concerns, with Mills Manufacturing being a defense contractor, was a driving factor in the raid, he said.
Ortiz-Delgado said the agency targets employers that provide services crucial to national security and infrastructure like airports, power plants and defense contractors.

“That doesn’t mean that we only investigate those employers, but we give priority to those because they are critical infrastructure,â€